Chertoff overhauls FEMA, rejects criticism

updated 1:16 p.m. ET Feb. 13, 2006

WASHINGTON - Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff on Monday announced wide-ranging changes to the nation’s embattled Federal Emergency Management Agency and rejected criticism that his agency is preoccupied with terror threats, at the expense of preparing for natural disasters like Hurricane Katrina.

“I want to tell you I unequivocally and strongly reject this attempt to drive a wedge between our concerns about terrorism and our concerns about natural disasters,” Chertoff said.

His strong defense of his agency, in response to criticism by ex-federal disaster chief Michael Brown and others, came as a congressional report blamed government-wide ineptitude for mishandling Hurricane Katrina relief.

The changes announced Monday range from creation of a full-time response force of 1,500 new employees to establishing a more reliable system to report on disasters as they unfold.

They are the first steps to overhauling FEMA, which was overwhelmed by the Aug. 29 Gulf Coast storm.

Rejects criticism
Chertoff spoke at a gathering of state emergency management directors meeting in suburban Alexandria, Va. He responded to what he said were “people taking the position that DHS sees itself as a terrorism-focused agency” and that there’s a “huge difference” between man-made and natural disasters.

A 600-page report by a special Republican-dominated House inquiry into one of the worst natural disasters in U.S. history concluded that late state and local evacuation orders exacerbated an untrained and inexperienced force of federal emergency workers.

It also said President Bush received poor and incomplete counsel about the crisis unfolding in the Gulf Coast. Chertoff has been the target of much of the criticism of the federal response to the hurricane.

Brown, who resigned under pressure as FEMA head, told a Senate committee last week he told the White House and Homeland Security officials on Aug. 29, the day Katrina hit, that major flooding was under way and a levee had been breached.

But both the president and Chertoff said previously that they were unaware of the levee breach until the next day, Aug. 30.

The failure of the levee system led to the catastrophic flooding of the city of 500,000 people.

‘I am accountable’
“I want to be clear, as the secretary of homeland security I am accountable and accept responsibility to the performance of the entire department, good and bad,” Chertoff said.

“I also have the responsibility to fix what went wrong,” he added.

Chertoff suggested that time was of the essence, noting that June 1 looms as the start of another hurricane season.

He pledged “a hard, honest look at what we can do to improve our response capability.”

The powerful storm killed more than 1,300 people along the Gulf Coast, displaced hundreds of thousands of others, and caused tens of billions in damage.

Chertoff conceded major communications failures in the catastrophe, comparing the situation to “the fog of war.”

“The first step in addressing that fog is to enhance and expand a hardened set of communications capabilities,” Chertoff said.

Democrats on the House Homeland Security Committee issued their own recommendations Sunday for changing FEMA, including having the agency’s director report directly to the president during major disasters. They also said the director should be an experienced emergency manager.

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